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Monday, 3 July 2017

Recipes from Borsetshire

The blackcurrants are beginning to ripen on the bushes at the end of the garden and on Friday I picked a few. These sharp highly flavoured summer fruit are not everyone's favourite but I do have a few popular recipes that I use.

We had 16 people for a summer lunch on Sunday and although I had some people bringing contributions of food I still needed to make another pudding. I chose a dish which I haven't made for quite some time, a blackcurrant cheesecake. This is one of the recipes that was used by Cathy at The Bull in Ambridge when she used to run the pub with a husband Sid Perks. Some of you maybe asking yourselves where on earth is Ambridge but any Radio 4 listeners will know that this is the fictitious home of The Archers.

Many years ago (20 plus I would say) my sister in law knowing I was an addict of the radio soap The Archers gave me an Archers cookbook which has been a firm favourite of mine. The popular pages are easily identifiable by the addition of scattered food ingredients. It is laid out in chapters according to the various characters, places and village events such as "Nelson's Wine Bar" (long gone) , "Brookfield Farm" and "St Stephen's Summer Fete".

This particular dish comes under the chapter dedicated to the village pub and is described as a "popular choice on The Bull's menu". It's an easy dish to make so I thought I would share it with you.

6oz digestive biscuits

3oz butter , melted

1tbsp gelatine soaked in 3 tbsp water

6oz blackcurrants

4oz cream cheese

4fl oz thick natural yoghurt

3oz caster sugar

5fl oz double cream lightly whipped.

1.Crush the biscuits and mix with the melted butter. Press into an 8in loose-bottomed cake tin I use a 10in flan dish.

2. Place the gelatine in a pan with the water and heat gently. I pop it in a basin and dissolve over hot water in a saucepan.

3. Heat the blackcurrants in a pan and simmer in a little water until soft and then allow to cool.

4.Blend the cream cheese, yoghurt and sugar together until smooth.

5.Fold in the gelatine, soft fruit and whipped cream.

6. Spoon ont o the biscuit base and chill till set.

It seemed to go down well as did the coronation chicken and baked ham with salad and new potatoes. A good time was had by all plus the sun shone all afternoon!